


Water Up to My Knees

by Hoothootmotherf_ckers



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 09:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16302971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/pseuds/Hoothootmotherf_ckers
Summary: A trauma like Raven's Roost will leave a mark on a person. Even ten years later, Magnus is still dealing with the repercussions, and his friends are just hoping to figure out how to help.Title from the song "Yellow Light" by Of Monsters and Men.





	Water Up to My Knees

To put it bluntly, Magnus Burnsides has seen a lot of shit in his life. Oh, he tries to hide it, tries to keep up a jovial front, but no one can escape their past forever. It sneaks up on you, insidious and painful and damning.

—

In hindsight, it’s obvious. They should have known, they should have understood. Taako and Merle look back on the things they saw, the things they should have seen, and hate themselves for doing nothing. But how could they have known? Magnus tried so hard to hide, and they had no idea what lurked in his past. But the clues were still there.

The first hint, the first inkling of something wrong, comes after Phandalin. That day had been full of shocks and chaos and one turn after the next, so it took some time for the reality of it to set in. But when it did, it was a doozy.

The brand new Reclaimers had settled into their new beds in the dormitories without issue. Two nights after their hiring, though, Taako wakes up to an unfamiliar sound. Someone in the room is crying.

He swings over the edge of his bunk to look. Merle is sleeping like a baby across the room. Magnus, on the other hand…

Magnus’s face is screwed up, and he looks to be in serious pain. Tears are slowly leaking down his face, but his eyes are shut.

“Hey, Magnus. Magnus!” Taako hisses. Magnus doesn’t respond. He’s clearly deeply asleep. Worried, Taako climbs down next to him.

He’s started muttering a bit, and moving. Taako only catches bits of it - “Stephen… no… Jules… why…”

He’s getting louder, and starting to thrash a bit. He sounds panicked, terrified, as he yells, “Jules? JULIA!” 

This is where Taako, afraid, makes a mistake. Unable to handle seeing his new friend like this, he grabs Magnus’s shoulder to shake him awake. In what seems like an instant, he’s _thrown_ across the room, hitting Merle’s bunk with a thud. A little dazed, he looks back at Magnus.

He’s awake, he’s sitting up, but it doesn’t look like he’s seeing the room. His eyes are angry, and afraid, and hurt. Taako just sits, stunned, as Merle, woken by the ruckus, begins to talk in a low, slow voice. 

“Hey there, Magnus. It’s me, Merle. You’re on the moon base, it’s been a weird few days. You’re a Reclaimer now. You live here with me, and Taako, and someone named Robbie. You were having a nightmare.”

By the end of this, Magnus is fully aware, and he’s looking at Taako with a horrified expression. “Oh, gods, Taako, are you ok? I’m so sorry, oh my gods…”

“I’m fine, homie,” Taako croaks out as Merle lays a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I’m so un-hurt that even Merle can fix it. We’re good.”

Merle scoffs but casts cure wounds anyway, and in moments all of Taako’s soon-to-be bruises are gone. He stands up, tries to act nonchalant. “Well, er, it’s like three in the morning so I’m going back to sleep, night y’all!” 

He climbs back up to his bunk and stares at the ceiling. In a few minutes, Merle’s breathing fades into the even rhythm of sleep. Taako stays awake about an hour more, and in that time, he never hears Magnus’s breathing change. When they get up in the morning, Magnus looks like he hadn’t slept a wink and refuses to talk about what had happened.

That’s the first real clue that Magnus has some darkness in his past. 

There’s smaller moments, in the days and weeks that follow. Sometimes Magnus stares off into space for a minute, then snaps back, looking startled. He’ll never say what’s wrong, but he’ll be shaken for hours after. He’ll spend hours in the gym on the moon base, training and running and punching hours longer than seems healthy. If he’s working with someone, like Carey or Killian, they’ll often stop him at a reasonable time, take him to go get some food after or just go chill. But if he’s alone, it’s not uncommon for him to come back to the dormitory with bleeding knuckles, too tired even to speak. 

(Taako and Merle try to keep an eye out for that, later.)

Sometimes he’ll spend days just… absent. He’ll train, he’ll sleep and eat and do everything he needs to do, but it’s like there’s a filter between him and the world. It takes a few moments for him to respond to conversation, to questions, and frequently his answers don’t make sense. Sometimes he doesn’t say enough, sometimes he seems distracted and rambles on for a minute on an unrelated topic. It’s somewhat disturbing to see from an outside perspective - Taako and Merle have more than once been unsettled by their coworker, their friend, seeming only halfway there. They try to keep acting normal, keep talking to him like nothing’s unusual, but they honestly don’t know what to do. 

Their second clue that something is seriously wrong comes just after their trip to Lucas Miller’s laboratory. As usual, a lot of shit falls apart, but they manage to pull off a miracle and save the day. And then - 

_“Tell Julia I said I love her.”_

They make it back to the base. They extract the stone, they debrief, they return to their bunks. They begin on their own tasks, quietly reading or working, decompressing from the events of the day. 

And then they hear breathing begin to pick up in pace. Merle and Taako both look quickly over to Magnus’s bunk, and what they see is unnerving. The normally confident man has curled into a ball on his bunk, knees clasped tight to his chest as if to make him as small as possible. His hands are clenching over and over, grabbing at scraps of blanket, and his eyes are wide and unseeing. Most concerningly, though, he’s hyperventilating, breath coming in quick wheezes that seem to be causing him physical pain. 

Taako and Merle walk over to his bunk slowly, hands visible. “Hey, Magnus, can you tell us what’s going on?” Taako asks soothingly, hiding his concern. 

There’s no response. As they come closer, they can see that Magnus is actually shaking.

“Hey, buddy, I’m going to cast a healing spell, ok?” Merle says, and casts cure wounds. Again, no reaction, and Taako pulls him back a bit.

“This isn’t an injury, man,” Taako says quietly. “This is a panic attack. Let me handle this one.” He raises his volume a bit, addressing Magnus. “Hey dude, I can help but we gotta figure out a way to communicate first. Can you nod or shake your head?”

The shaking pauses for a moment, then returns in full force, but at least now Magnus’s eyes are focused on Taako. The elf smiles, tension showing behind his eyes. 

“Ok, no head motion. Can you move your hands? A thumbs-up, a wave, anything.”

Another pause for a second, then Magnus’s right hand jerks into a clear thumbs-up. Taako sighs a little in relief.

“Ok, good, that’s great. So you’re having a panic attack right now. Have you had one before?”

Another quick thumbs up, and Magnus’s eyes have tightened, his body curled in a bit more. Behind Taako, Merle sucks in a breath. Taako’s smile freezes a bit on his face.

“Ok, good to know. Is there anything you know of that helps?”

Thumbs-down. Shit.

“Okay. We can work with that. Is it ok if I touch you?” Taako asks, concern back in full force. Magnus is still shaking, and his breathing hasn’t slowed. 

It takes Magnus a minute to respond, and when he does it’s not great - a wobbling hand Taako interprets as ‘maybe.’ 

Taako climbs back up to his bunk and pulls down a blanket. It’s a warm, fuzzy dark red throw, and most importantly it’s _heavy._ He holds it up in front of Magnus, whose eyes latch onto it.

“I’m going to put this over your shoulders now, ok?” Taako says. Magnus shows a thumbs-up, still staring at the blanket. Slowly, careful, Taako drapes the blanket over his friend, tucking it in on the sides so the man is a very large blanket burrito. He then sits down on the bed next to Magnus and, telegraphing his moves, leans against him. After about a minute, the shaking stops, and Taako makes quick, jerking eye motions to usher Merle over to Magnus’s other side. 

An interminable time later, the wheezing just stops. There’s a shudder, a gasp, and Magnus is breathing normally again. Taako bumps his friend with his shoulder. “Hey dude, you back with us?”

Magnus looks miserable. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but no words come out and he looks frustrated. 

“Hey, dude, it’s ok. It takes some time for these to end. You’re safe, it’s over. Also, you’ve gotta be fucking exhausted and I dunno about you but I’m about ready for bed.” Taako yawns dramatically, and Magnus’s eyes droop a bit. Merle, still a bit confused as to what he should be doing, walks over to his bed. With a wave, Taako climbs up to his own. When he checks in a couple minutes, Magnus is fast asleep, his face finally relaxed.

In the morning, no one mentions what had happened, or why Merle spends the whole day doing research in the Bureau’s library. 

So yeah, in a year of living and working with Magnus, Taako and Merle have figured out that he’s got some serious baggage. They do their best to help - to pull him back to earth when his eyes go distant, to wake him up before the nightmares get bad. But they still have no idea why they happen, what’s lurking in his past that haunts him so badly.

And then the Temporal Chalice happens. 

They don’t talk about it afterward. I mean, where do you even begin? They have some answers, but they’re just the bare bones of a ten year old trauma that never began to heal, the loss of a person who they never knew. They’re not therapists, have no training as to how to deal with this. 

But they can do what they know. So when they get back to the Bureau, Chalice in hand, Taako ducks out of the debrief early. Magnus and Merle explain what happened, watch the Relic be destroyed, all the usual procedure. And then Merle, for reasons he won’t explain, pulls Magnus back to their dorm room.

Magnus takes one step inside and stops dead. All the mattresses have been pulled off their bunks and placed on the floor, with dozens of blankets draped around the room to make a fuzzy, haphazard tent. Hundreds of tiny magical lights flicker from behind drapes, glowing a gentle rainbow onto the room, and in the middle of it all stands Taako, dressed in pajamas. He throws a bundle at Magnus, hitting him in the chest.

“Well? Get changed and come on in,” he says, as Magnus realizes the bundle is his own set of fuzzy plaid pajamas. “It’s been a real fucking long day, it’s nap time for Taako. We just retrieved another damn Relic, they can do without us for a bit.” 

Merle dives into a pile of pillows and emerges wearing fuzzy blue footie pajamas. Choosing not to question that, Magnus quickly changes and burrows into the immense nest of bedding before him. Taako drapes himself over the larger man like a cat and Merle curls up in a ball at his side. Magnus drifts off to sleep, surrounded by gentle lights, and safety, and friends.

No nightmares interrupt his sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't think Magnus could have seen the things he's seen and be completely, 100% ok without the assistance of a mental health professional. Like, he clearly isn't doing great given the implications of the rushing in thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's more than that.
> 
> Everything in this fic is based off my own mental health experiences. If you can relate to any of this, I'd strongly recommend talking to someone. Maybe it'll help right away, maybe you'll need to try a few different therapists or techniques before getting anywhere. That's ok. I'm not 100% better, I had a lot of bad luck with therapists, but I'm getting there now. I just want you to be able to get there too.


End file.
